Sky Action

Weather influences everything people do. The
health of every person on the planet is directly affected by changes
in the weather. The sun burns millions of the earth’s human
inhabitants every day. During a wild winter ice can lead to all
kinds of mishaps, from broken hips to multi-car crashes. Tornadoes,
hurricanes, blizzards and floods hurt and kill thousands of people.
At the same time, without rain, sun or wind life on earth couldn’t
survive. Plants we eat convert sunshine into edible energy through
photosynthesis; people and all animals rely on these plants and each
other for food. From hiking to skiing, from surfing to golf, from
flying to fishing, everything that people do is dependent on the
weather. Technology to measure and predict what the weather will do
has improved, but scientists cannot foretell when the next storm
will hit. Weather repeats particular patterns. While
meteorologists can give general information about what weather
systems will do, they cannot be exact. There are too many factors
that play into how these systems develop, which makes prediction
impossible.

The movement of celestial bodies has been more
dependable; they have been the basis of navigation, time telling, and
myth making. The Sun marks days and hours; the Moon, months. Planets
move across the sky, changing positions with each day. Early
explorers used constellations and other objects to guide themselves
through unknown oceans. Without careful observation of planets and
stars, physics discoveries that have shaped how people think would
never have been discovered. Galileo, Newton and Einstein had to have
these objects to construct their physical theories. Ancient cultures
from all over the world used stars and planets as a basis of myths
about creation and the natural world around them. The Romans called
“the red planet” Mars, their god of war. A Cherokee myth has the sun,
moon and earth as characters in a family squabble.

For most people, birds and skies are inextricably
intertwined. Like clouds, the sun, moon and stars, many animals are
connected to the skies. Birds, bees, bats and butterflies, among
thousands of others, fly through the skies. Most evolutionary
biologists believe that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Today, there
are more than 9000 species of birds all over the world. Though a few
different species of birds don’t fly—penguin and ostrich, for
example—most do. To fly, birds rely on special physical adaptations
like hollow bones and feathers. With neither bones nor feathers, bees
still have wings that propel them. Of the 20,000 species worldwide,
the honeybee is the most familiar to Americans. Honeybees pollinate
all kinds of plants and create honey. In the United States
California, Florida and South Dakota are tops in commercial honey
production. Like bees, bats don’t have feather, but they have bones
and hair. They are the only mammals that fly. There are almost 9000
species of bats that live on all continents but Antarctica. Of these
only three drink blood. Most bats eat insects, particularly
mosquitoes. Bats also eat butterflies. More than 20,000 species of
butterflies and moths live around the world; around 3500 in North
American. Smaller butterflies can live only as long as a week.
Monarchs might live up to nine months.

Pilots

People fly too. From the Wright Brothers 1903
flight to present, when thousands of planes and tens of thousands of
passengers fly in a day, people have been fascinated with flight.
Like George and Wilbur, this fascination led many men and women to
learn to fly. In 1921, Bessie Coleman earned her pilot’s license,
becoming the first African-American to do so. She moved to France for
pilot training because of racism in America. Lt. General Benjamin
Davis, the first African-American general in the U.S. military,
suffered under a racist system, but persevered to graduate from West
Point and lead the famed Tuskegee Airman in World War II before rising
to general later in his honor-filled career. Closer to home, Joe Foss
shot down 26 enemy planes over the Pacific during WWII; he was
decorated as one of the country’s best aces. In the skies over Europe
and North Africa, former senator George McGovern flew 35 missions in
his faithful B-24, Dakota Queen.